A Collection of Creation Stories
by sharpie.fiend
Summary: A few myths from the Tortallan pantheon to tide you over until I finish A Number of Kisses.
1. Chapter 1

When Father Universe and Mother Flame created Place, their children were delighted. Then, all the world was a blank slate, nothing but location (which is of course the opposite of nothing) and the gods were fascinated by their parents'creation. Soon they began to make things too, for their own enjoyment. Young Mithros created the sun, which he claimed was in honor of their Mother, but the other gods soon complained that his sun burned too bright and hot. The white empty space (or whole space—can any place really be empty?) collected the light and threw it back in the gods' faces, and uncomfortable, they began to complain. The Trifold Goddess created plants to eat up the light and heat, but they soon began to whither and die. Wavewalker created water, the opposite of fire, to quench the heat and cool the plants, but the water just boiled away, leaving an even more uncomfortable sticky feeling to the air. Father Storm called up a breeze to blow on their faces, but soon they discovered the wind dried up all the water. Still the relentless light and heat beat down on the young gods.

The Trickster was the first to demand that Mithros take down his sun, but the proud young god refused and there was a great quarrel. Everyone thought they could perform the others' creations better. There was such a clamor that the very foundations of the Place began to quake, and all was in danger of collapsing back into Chaos, when quiet Kidunka walked away from the fray. She went to the edge of the world, picked it up, and walked away. She pulled, pulled, and tugged, and sweated, and stretched out more and more as the weight of the world dragged on her arms. Still, she carried the edge of the world around until at last the met with the other edge. She looked down in horror at how stretched out she now was, but still the worked on. Carefully, Kidunka wove the edges of the world together and with the last stitch she created a pull-rope. Again, she pulled, and pulled, and tugged, and sweated as she turned the now-round world around. As she walked, the gods argued on, not even aware that their shadows grew longer as the sun burned with less heat on their faces. Only when the horizon hid the sun completely did they stop in surprise. In terror, they thought Mother Flame had had enough of their tantrums and was taking away their creations one by one. Then Kidunka slithered up to her brothers and sisters, for she was so stretched out that she could no longer support herself standing up.

"There you great galumps, you'll now have relief from the sun. I've set the world in motion, so we only have to deal with Mithros' mistake for half the time."

Mithros glared, but Kidunka's sisters rushed over to her.

"Oh Kidunka, your beautiful body!" The Trifold Goddess wailed.

Wavewalker and Shakith hugged her tight, trying to rub her body back into shape, while Lushagui combed the hair back from Kidunka's face, tears falling to the ground.

"Enough," Kidunka calmed her sisters; "I just did what needed doing. It's not the end of the world." And she smiled at the phrase.

The Trifold Goddess sniffed (beautifully) and said, "Well, the least I can do is honor your sacrifice. You've given us night, and I will make it beautiful."

So she created the moon, glowing silver and cool, to be a beacon for Kidunka's lost beauty.

The eons passed, and the gods delighted in the days and nights. Eventually, though, they became bored…and a bored Trickster is a recipe for all kinds of disasters. So together they worked on what they imagined would be their greatest creation, man.

"They will be able to prove their valor and courage," boomed Mithros, but man went too far and so there was constant war. Men fought to the brink of extinction.

"They will need to have pleasure," the Trifold Goddess declared, and so she created woman. But men and women went too far, and soon there were so many people that the world filled to bursting.

"They will know death," whispered the Black God. And so old age and illness entered the world, so that many could live.

Still, between warring and whoring and the shortness of their lives, humans cried out with boredom. So Gainel gave them sleep and dreams to occupy their minds, Lushagui gave them society so that they would have many rules with which to comply, and the Trickster gave them all the excitement anyone with sense could want and more. Yet still the humans were not satisfied with their lot.

Then one goddess, who had played no part in the creation of man, brushed her copper hair from her eyes and thought, Boredom comes from a surplus of time, so the cure for boredom must be work. We cannot give them the power to create; goodness knows how much trouble _we_ have caused…but they need something for which to strive.

So she gave man stomachs. Immediately, hunger drove them. They began cultivating plants for food, but she knew that would not be enough. So she created beasts—cattle for meat and drink; sheep for meat, drink, and cloth; and chickens, which gave food without needing to die. And at last, eons after her brothers and sisters, she discovered the joys of creation. She made fish for the waters, deer for the land, birds for the air, in multitudes and multitudes. But she created too much, and gave too much. By the time she realized, though, she couldn't turn back. All her power was given out to populate the world, so she gathered up what was left and made two things, a snake to honor Kidunka, and a son to protect the beasts. She named him Weiryn, and her last breath went out into the world.

But all things created cannot remain slaves; they must find their own selves. It is ironic, however, that the son of the Lady of the Beasts should become the god of the hunt. He will get his comeuppance, nonetheless, in the form of a daughter of his own.


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm not Tamora Pierce. Sorry!**

Dr. Farring scrabbled to keep her tablet in her lap as the convoy jerked into another pot hole, the road nearly obliterated by old IED craters. So she abandoned her coffee cup in favor of a more secure grip on her computer, using her stylus to erase the mess in her equations. Headlines scrolled beneath the app, a GPS map tracked their progress to the bunker, and a glimpse of a CAD drawing showed a pinion feather. Another violent jostle made another mess of Dr. Farring's whiteboard, so she closed that tab with a frustrated jab. They were not far from the facility anyway. She looked out the tiny missile proof window into the desert, narrowing her eyes at the smoke rising from four separate places in the distance. She turned her eyes away, examining the contractors in her humvee. They were elite KBD soldiers, eyes sharp on the computer controls of their remote external guns. The vehicles were traveling on autopilot for the moment—though the program was designed to be overridden in battle situations. Dr. Farring looked back onto her tablet, sliding the news to the front of her screen. She clicked on a video of a mushroom cloud in snow covered mountains when the humvee just ahead exploded, flying into the air and landing with a crash directly in front of their bumber. The shockwave rattled their armored plating and their electrical system flickered. Dr. Farring's head snapped back and with a sharp crack hit the wall. The autopilot veered sharply to avoid the flaming wreck and their humvee bounced over something—either a wheel or a body. They drove on. Dr. Farring bit her lip and blinked hard twice.

Finally, they reached a garage door in a mountainside. Sensors scanned the vehicle and its occupants and the door opened to admit them. Inside the road was brightly lit—a tunnel that began a sloping downward spiral. Dr. Farring closed her eyes against the carsickness. When the humvee finally stopped, her KBD escort exited first. They were met by a senior ranking officer who greeted her, "Ma'am."

"Major," she replied with a stiff nod.

"The forge is ready," he told her as she was walked quickly into a sterile white hallway. White-coated lab techs moved to let them pass, while doors steadily opened and closed on either side, busy with activity. Rooms filled with microscopes, centrifuges, coolers full of growth matrises, and servers passed, glimpses shown through moving doors.

"Has the titanium alloy been fired?" Dr. Farring asked.

"It's just about to be poured." They stopped momentarily to be scanned, and the double doors to the shop opened. Through the reinforced windows, they could see a stream of molten titanium-6AL 4V metal being poured into a steaming mold. When the mold broke away a hydrolic hammer smashed the bar into a glowing red ribbon. An automated arm twisted the metal and the hammer beat the metal back in on itself. Even in the control room, the noise was physical.

"Very good." Dr. Farring turned her back to the windows and asked, "And the cell growth?"

"Nearly complete. The matrises will be ready to join the hosts as soon as the alloy is forged, and The HILA cell regeneration rate has been properly calibrated to match the rate of apoptosis after maturity."

Dr. Farring raised both eyebrows. "What are their projected lifetimes?"

"Hypothetically forever, barring catastrophic failure."

"And their power sources?"

"The kinetic-magnet motors would face de-polarization within fifty years if they were to sit idle, but with the metal bodies and constant motion, we were able to counteract that effect."

Dr. Farring nodded. "Let me transfer the CAD files. We can start production as soon as the alloy is tempered. Were they able to develop cutting tools capable of withstanding the metal? Lazer cutters warped the alloy in previous tests."

"Yes, they identified an obsidian carbide tip able to complete a full run."

The Major led her to a separate machine shop; again they were separated from the floor by reinforced glass. All the machining centers and turning centers were run by wireless controls and parts were changed by automated arms. Dr. Farring sent her CAD file from her tablet to the main server and began programming.

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"Unmanned drones will never be able replace the ability of a pilot to look past the obvious and make complex decisions. Yet there are some risks that are unacceptable for humans."

Dr. Farring stood out in the gritty wind, presenting to a small cabal of military leaders. She continued, "Now, we have created a solution. Able to share retinal memories, survive hostile environments, and take directions while still able to make their own decisions, I present the new generation of spyware…" Generals and warlords gasped as the STR-1W soared into view, fanned its bright metal wings, and landed in a cloud of dust.

Then the sky caught on fire.

"Nobel thought dynamite would end all war," Dr. Farring whispered. "The atom bomb was supposed to be the last deterrent. Yet look. Look!" Beneath the still silent inferno raging above them, pillars of smoke still rose from the land. "What horrors will it take to keep men from fighting? Or will we blast ourselves into extinction? Let the worst thing come! Let it be the last deterren—" Then the shockwave from the atmospheric hydrogen bomb reached the earth, obliterating everything. With a scream and roar and the hot shrapnel hurricane, mountains were leveled, and above it all the whole sky burned. The force disrupted the magnetosphere, allowing the solar winds to strip away much of the atmosphere, and the doubled radiation fell to the ground.

When the dust settled, steel wings shook out the sand.

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Rikash blinked. Daine was asking again, "Who dreamt up the first stormwing?"

**A/N: Who said Tortall had to be a new world? **


End file.
